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  She stiffened with resolution. Fine. She would simply make it a point to rent Maryanne’s apartment to a man. There were any number of male dancers who could probably protect them just as effectively as that big detective with his remote, analyzing eyes, and one or another of them was always looking for a place to rent. She relaxed by perceptible degrees. MacLaughlin had set her teeth on edge, but after their part in this was over she’d never have to see him again. And, in any event, it was doubtful that he’d be interested in renting her apartment. The conversation prompting Rhonda’s impulsive offer had been about hotel accommodations, not permanent lodgings.

  So there was no sense in letting herself get all worked up over something that would probably never even come to pass.

  “They’re bloody well taking their own sweet time,” Tristan growled as he paced the hall.

  “Miss Charles looked pretty shook,” Joe said mildly. “And you know women…”

  “No, I canna say that I do, precisely.” Tristan stopped pacing and faced Joe. “On the whole, lassies are one big mystery I’ve never been able to unravel.”

  Joe grinned. “You don’t have any sisters, I take it.”

  “No, nor brothers, either.”

  “I’ve got five sisters, myself.”

  “Lord, mon.” Tristan tugged at his tie, eyeing Cash with an envy he’d never allow to show. It must be nice, having a family. “What’s that like, then? Living with that many lasses?”

  “Hair-raising,” Joe said, then laughed ruefully, slicking a hand over his bald scalp. “Back when I had hair it was, that is. I’m a big boy now, and it’s been several years since I’ve lived with any of them, but it wasn’t so bad, having sisters.” He grinned. “That’s not what I would have told you when I was a kid, of course. But I get a kick out of them these days. They’ve taught me a lot about females. And rule number one is that damn few women can enter a bathroom and just do their business and walk out again. There are mirrors in there, MacLaughlin, and they’ve got purses loaded with hairbrushes and makeup and the like. So you might as well relax. They’ll be out when they’re damn good and ready, and not a minute before.”

  “Bloody hell.” Tristan resumed his pacing, then, abruptly all business, he questioned Joe extensively and made a few suggestions for immediate action. Joe left to make a phone call.

  Cash was still gone when the two women returned, but he came back almost before Tristan had a chance to concur with the other man’s analysis of feminine grooming habits. The women’s hair was impeccably styled—it shone under the fluorescent lighting—and their mouths glistened with lipstick.

  “Your color’s better,” he said to Amanda. “Are you feeling a wee bit stronger, then?”

  “Yes…thank you,” she replied, surprised and just slightly gratified by his show of consideration.

  “I apologize for the necessity of your ordeal,” he continued smoothly, and Amanda felt her jaw go slack. That was certainly not the impression she’d received earlier when he had hustled her into the morgue to make the identification. She’d been under the impression that he was gaining some covert satisfaction from her ordeal. Resolutely refusing to let her confusion show, she closed her mouth, only to have her stomach drop at his next words.

  “Do you possess a key to Miss Farrel’s apartment?”

  “Yes, of course. I own the triplex.” Her heart began to pound. Oh, God, please, she prayed. Don’t let him say he’s been considering Rhonda’s suggestion. Please, don’t let him say that.

  “I would appreciate it if you’d hand it over. It will save us from having to break down the door,” he said with implacable briskness. “Your identification has opened up a whole new can of warr-ums, Miss Charles, and I’m afraid we have a great number of questions for you and Miss Smith.”

  “Oh, but…”

  “I suggest we take you home and talk there. You’ll be much more comfortable than at police headquarters.” Tristan had been making a conscious effort to sound pleasant in an attempt to make amends for dragging her into the morgue earlier, but even he could hear the way his voice flattened, teetering on the edge of hardness. Well, hell, he truly did believe she and Miss Smith would be less intimidated in her home. That didn’t mean that he would hesitate to drag the two of them downtown if they showed signs of becoming recalcitrant. He had a job to do, and the sooner began, the better.

  Amanda stared into MacLaughlin’s hard gray eyes and commanded herself not to cry. This had been possibly the worst afternoon of her life, since Teddy…it had been a hard day, entirely, and apparently, it wasn’t going to be over anytime soon. Her head was pounding and her stomach felt as if it might never tolerate food again. She felt lousy all over, period: shaky, sick, and ice cold. Grudgingly, Amanda put aside the fantasy she’d been harboring of soaking in a deep, hot bubble bath. She experienced something close to hatred when she looked at the lieutenant. He wasn’t sorry at all. He was probably getting a real kick out of this.

  Well, okay, that might not be entirely fair, and maybe, just maybe, she was skating on the thin edge of paranoia, but she doubted it. And even if she was, she still held this oversized, cold-eyed bully with his stupid, lovely brogue personally responsible.

  Eyeing him with disdainful rebellion, she told him what he expected to hear—she preferred to be interrogated in her own home.

  Chapter

  2

  Tristan wouldn’t have thought he’d given a moment’s consideration to Amanda Charles’s triplex, yet its appearance managed to take him by surprise. Given her personal appearance, with its unanticipated air of refinement, he supposed he had expected something sleek and contemporary, or cool and elegant—not this rambling, cream-colored, shake-covered building planted squarely in the middle of an upper-middleclass residential neighborhood.

  It was a big, sprawling, older house, built on three levels around a fern- and flower-bedecked rockery. Its slate-blue wooden shutters and windowboxes, plus the two-tone chocolate and blue wooden trim that neatly encased large expanses of multipaned windows, gave it a warm, homey appearance. Only upon closer inspection did Tristan discover that the two glossy, milk-chocolate-colored doors that faced out onto a small, enclosed yard each led to a separate complex. Next to the doors, mounted on the wall, was a highly polished brass mailbox, whose address was engraved in flowing lowercase script, followed by a letter to distinguish each individual residence. The third door wasn’t readily visible, but Tristan assumed it was tucked into the recess at the top of a short flight of wide brick steps that led up to the middle level.

  Each apartment had an individualizing feature. The one on the highest level had a small wooden deck jutting out over part of the rockery, and the lowest level residence had a ground-hugging porch, whose slender doweled pillars looked nearly too fragile to support the floor of the third, mid-level apartment above it. That residence, in its turn, was distinguished by double French doors that led out onto a tiny, narrow wooden balcony.

  The yard was sunken and surrounded by a low picket fence atop the rockery banks, lending an overall illusion of privacy. Amanda led them down wide, shallow steps, bypassing the flight of stairs that branched off to the top-level apartment. A narrow brick path wound through the rockeries and culminated in another flight of stairs down to the yard and the ground-level residence, but she turned left where the path verged and climbed the shallow set of steps to the apartment with the recessed door. Tristan looked down into the yard as they climbed the stairs to her apartment, more curious than he cared to admit. He noted that it was well kept but not meticulously maintained—the flowers and ferns had been allowed to grow wild.

  Amanda took a deep breath as she unlocked her door and stood aside to let everyone enter. She didn’t relish the prospect of having her private domain invaded, and she resented being powerless to prevent it.

  She exhaled quietly, knowing that, realistically, the best she could hope for was to get it over with as quickly as possible. God, let them just ask their questions and
go away. She still harbored a faint hope of taking a long, hot bath this evening to soothe away the chill that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her bones.

  It was dark inside. Rhonda, the first one through the door, wove through the dim interior with the ease of familiarity and switched on a Tiffany-shaded lamp in the living room. It sat on a marble-topped table between two gray chenille wing-backed chairs. She flopped down on one of them and waved her hand expansively for the two policemen to sit in the remaining chair or on the facing peach and gray chintz-covered couch. Presently, the two men were settled and Rhonda offered an array of refreshments. Amanda resolutely ignored them all and continued on to the bathroom, where she kept her aspirin.

  There was a knock at the front door while she was still in the bathroom, and she returned to the living room to find it crowded with men. Tristan detached himself from the group and came over to her.

  “May we have the key to Miss Farrel’s apartment, Miss Charles? The lads from the lab are here, ready to go to work.” Tristan felt pretty grim, observing her. She had lost a great deal of the color she had regained earlier, and he realized with uncharacteristic concern that she was probably both hungry and fatigued.

  His sympathy for her state of mind both surprised and disturbed him. It was an ironclad rule of his never to become personally involved with individuals in a case. He had seen his fellow officers do it, and it was his observation that it invariably led to nothing but trouble. So it was against his better judgment that he followed her into the kitchen, and when she handed him a key from the hook on the wall, he reached out on impulse and grasped one of her wrists in his hand. The bones felt fragile beneath his fingers.

  She stared up at him silently.

  “Make yourself a spot of tea or some coffee, lass,” he said, absentmindedly running his thumb over the smooth-textured skin on the inside of her wrist. “We’ll try to be as brief as possible this evening, so you can get some rest. We canna have you dropping from exhaustion.” Releasing her wrist, he turned on his heel and left the room.

  Amanda stared at his back until he disappeared from view. Then she shook her head and moved to put the kettle on. Would wonders never cease? Perhaps the man was human after all.

  Quickly she assembled a tray, using the time it took the kettle to boil to resurrect some old relaxation techniques. The deep-breathing exercises made her feel marginally calmer, and she carried the tray out into the living room, where, she noticed with relief, the crowd had dispersed. Setting the tray on the small oak coffee table, Amanda sank onto the soft cushions of the couch. Her brow furrowed as she looked around.

  “Where’s Rhonda?”

  “She ran upstairs to feed her cat,” Joe replied, leaning forward to accept a cup of coffee. He consulted his notebook. “She lives in apartment A?”

  “Yes.” Amanda cupped her fragile china teacup in both hands, appreciating the warmth that sank into her chilled flesh. “Rhonda lives in A: I live in B; and Maryanne lives…lived…in C.”

  “Did Miss Farrel have family, Miss Charles?” Tristan asked. “Someone we should contact?”

  “No.” Amanda stared into her cup. “At least, none that I know of. She once said that she was originally from Ohio, but that there was nobody left back home.”

  “Miss Charles, what prompted you to call the station?” Tristan regarded her with eyes as cool as winter rain.

  “Maryanne hadn’t been home for three days.” She took a sip of her coffee, set the cup down, and looked at him. “It’s not that we live in each other’s pockets. But when one of us planned to be away, we generally let one of the others know about it. It served a couple of purposes: it saved us from worrying unnecessarily, and we could keep an eye on her apartment while she was away. You know, bring in the paper and mail, make sure different lights were on, that sort of thing.” Amanda leaned forward to take a sip of her coffee, gazing at the two policemen over the rim of her cup. “But it didn’t always work out the way it was intended. Once or twice before, Maryanne had simply taken off without letting anyone know. So when she didn’t come home this time, I just assumed she’d met a man and was spending some time with him.”

  Rhonda returned, slipping into the wing-backed chair and helping herself to a cup of coffee. “Maryanne was always falling in love,” she contributed, leaning back in her chair and crossing her long, spandex-covered legs. “It was kind of a standing joke with us. Maryanne was always ‘in love.’” Her fingers sketched quotation marks in the air. “I’m always in heat.” She gave an unrepentant grin. Then she jerked her thumb at Amanda, and her voice registered disapproval. “And Mandy Rose here is so damn selective, she rarely goes out with anyone.”

  Amanda smiled thinly. “Right,” she agreed. “So at first, I didn’t worry about her. I talked it over with Rhonda and we decided she’d probably met someone—again—and she’d be back when she was ready. But that was before Charlie asked me if she was sick.”

  “Who’s Charlie?” Tristan swept his eyes up and down Amanda before focusing once again on her eyes. So she was selective, was she? He wouldn’t have thought it.

  “Charlie,” Amanda repeated emphatically, as though that one name said it all. When Tristan continued to eye her levelly, she elaborated. “Charles Bagotta at the Cabaret. He’s…oh, I don’t know how you’d describe Charlie’s position, exactly.”

  “Try slave driver,” Rhonda suggested with a cynical smile.

  “Charlie is…in charge. He shows us our numbers and puts us through our paces,” Amanda said slowly.

  “Charlie yells, screams, humiliates us, and drives us beyond human endurance,” Rhonda said with flat finality. “If we aren’t sweating buckets, Charlie is one unhappy man.” The two women stumbled over each other as they took turns trying to explain.

  “If you need a day off,” Amanda said, “you see Charlie…”

  “If you have a problem with a stage door Johnny, you see Charlie…”

  “If you think you can improve a set in the routine, you see…”

  “If you screwed up in the high kick, you better hope Charlie didn’t see you…”

  “Lord, yes, that’s the truth. You definitely want not to be seen then by Charlie…”

  “So this Charlie,” Joe interrupted. “He asked you if Miss Farrel was ill?”

  “Yes.” Amanda stared soberly first at Joe and then at Tristan, but for a moment saw neither of them. Instead, she saw Maryanne’s lifeless body on a stainless steel slab at the morgue. Hugging her arms, she rubbed her hands up and down, attempting to smooth away the goosebumps that had cropped up beneath her warm sweater. “And that’s when I really started to worry. You see, you don’t have unexplained absences at the Cabaret. Not if you want to continue working there. You can get away with playing sick occasionally, but never without calling in. And Maryanne—no matter how deeply in love she suddenly thought herself to be—knew that. She might be an incurable romantic when it came to men, but she was totally practical when it came to her career and livelihood.” Amanda’s voice trailed away and she stared down at her flawless French-manicure as her fingers nervously twisted together in her lap.

  Joe gave her a second, then prompted, “So that’s when you called us?”

  “Not immediately.” Amanda looked up, frowning.

  “It was right before the midnight show last night when Charlie asked Amanda about Maryanne,” Rhonda contributed. “And afterward, she came to me…”

  “We didn’t know what to do,” Amanda took up. “If she was just off with some man and we called in the police, she’d never forgive us. Yet if she were in serious trouble and we didn’t call the police, we’d never forgive ourselves. We talked about it in the dressing room and all the way home, and we finally decided to give her just one more day before we made any calls. But when I woke up this morning, I turned on the news, and there was a story about an unidentified woman the police believed to be the latest victim of the Showgirl Slayer. Her description fit Maryanne. And that’s when
I called.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you before then that she could be this guy’s latest victim?”

  “No. Not once.” One corner of Amanda’s mouth pulled up in a bitter little self-accusing smile. “That must sound incredibly stupid to you. We’d all heard of him, of course. There’s been a regular media blitz ever since the second murder. But it’s the sort of thing you see on the news or read about in the papers, not something that happens to you or to anyone you know. It never occurred to me…”

  “Yeah,” Rhonda said. “Take the first one—the Morgan girl? Well, at the time of her murder, no one knew she was going to be the first of many, and the news originally made it sound as if a jealous lover had done her in. Somebody she knew—you know?—not some loony-tunes freak off the street. And since she was the first, we didn’t relate the murder to what she did for a living so much as to the type of woman she was reputed to be. One of the guys in our troupe mentioned having worked with her at Bally’s for a brief period, and he told us she’d had something of a reputation as a tease. He said that unless she had changed dramatically, most likely one of the guys she’d dated had finally just flipped out from the frustration.”

  “What’s this dancer’s name?” Tristan asked, and Rhonda looked stricken.

  “Oh, it couldn’t be Pete,” she hastened to assure him. “He’s gay.”

  Tristan regarded her with steady gray eyes that coolly demanded she quit editorializing and answer his question, and Rhonda looked to Amanda for guidance. Amanda shrugged. As far as she was concerned, Rhonda might as well tell him. She had a feeling if MacLaughlin wanted specific information, he wouldn’t rest until he got it.

  “Schriber,” Rhonda supplied reluctantly. “Pete Schriber.”

  Tristan scribbled the name down; then he glanced up at Rhonda, noting her distress. “We’re not planning to arrest the guy, lass,” he said and smiled. “But he might be able to furnish information about the victim that we don’t already have. You never know what might be important.”